1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus and processes for non-destructive, non-acoustical and inexpensive detection of insect infestation in agricultural commodities.
2. Description of Prior Art
In this country alone, hidden insect infestation in stored agricultural commodities such as corn, wheat, rice, nuts, cotton, etc., costs the government and farmers millions of dollars each year. This figure is obviously larger when considered on a worldwide basis. Quick, inexpensive, and reliable tools for determining insect infestation are needed, and could prove very beneficial in: (1) determining if a stored commodity is marketable; (2) maintaining good quality of agricultural commodities, and; (3) facilitating enforcement of government food quality regulations.
Various detection methods used in the past included X-ray, chemical or visual analysis, and more recently, acoustical amplification of insect sounds as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,671,114 issued 6/9/87 to Litzkow et al. All of these methods are expensive, require elaborate testing facilities with trained personnel, and have various drawbacks. For example, X-ray inspection suffers from the drawbacks of: (1) high initial cost for equipment; (2) high cost of X-ray film and development, and; (3) examination of each of the individual grains on the X-ray film requires a great deal of labor. Acoustic detection such as that disclosed by the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,671,114 suffers from the drawbacks of: (1) requiring extensive acoustical detection elements, such as, at least one sound detecting diaphragm, a backstop, a sound waveguide means, a support member, and a microphone, none of which are necessary for the present invention; (2) being susceptible to interference from extraneous sound thus requiring operation thereof in a sound dampened environment, in contrast to the present invention which provides similar sensitivity but surprisingly is not as susceptible to such interference.
The Federal Grain Inspection Service has no limits on larval infestation because until now there have been no devices to test for larvae. At present, grain is inspected visually by sieving the grain through hardware cloth and filtering out the adult insects. Active larvae inside the grain cannot be seen, which may result in a failure to detect such larvae. Our invention permits detection of both adult insects and hidden larvae.